One person at a time only?
 

I just got a nasty look from a TSA agent when I accompanied my husband to the id check station, I was ordered to get back in the line. Since when?

I asked how this worked for families with children and was told that one parent and one child can go at a time. Well I guess it's good that parents don't travel with more than one child each, huh?

I've gone through with my wife and two kids simultaneously, pretty much every time we travel together. Never a problem. As usual, it depends on who's manning the desk...

You clearly got an agent with an inferiority complex who likes to exercise the minimal power he has whenever possible.

Mike

The rule in theory is that each adult is dealt with one-at-a-time. Kids go with a parent, largely because they don't have/need ID.

I've seen a lot of couples go up together - sans kids - and have never seen the ID checker tell one of them to get back in line.

What a joke. He gets paid to look at pieces of ID all day must be a sad life trying to bring others down

I guess that they want people separate so they can compare stories if they had to. If people were entering a country on a so called holiday but were planning to work and the agent could ask the other adult.

I used to always go up with my husband, now they are very strict and we just go one at a time. I was just at Singapore Airport and the roving agent guy asked a family with 6 kids, or rather told them that each parent was to take 3 kids each in 2 groups.

I was thinking about immigration. What is the ID check station you are talking about? Must be a US thing?

Yes, the OP clearly said TSA. Not Immigration and Customs.

Where Mrs Flies and I have always gone up to the passport control booth together in the U.S. And overseas.

Yes, it was TSA not passport control, at SFO T3 Precheck. We always stay together in line and I've never had an issue with TSA. (Once in a great while some passport control officer makes us process separately, but mostly not.)

We last traveled together a month ago, at the same airport and at the same TSA checkpoint. As you might imagine, I'm no fan of "rules" that appear and disappear out of nowhere.

Aren't families supposed to go through Immigration and Customs together, since there's a single declaration form? At least, entering the US and Canada.

Likewise. We always go together, nobody has ever objected.

Where are you that you can get on a plane without them checking your ID vs boarding pass?

OP is talking about TSA/PreCheck
 

I have to say, SFO is my home airport and i have NEVER seen TSA let a couple through together for ID check.

It is called most of the civilized world outside of the USA ;)